The Parker Homestead

Norman and Lillian Parker, my great-grandparents built this house and raised their eight children here.  It's where Grandma cooked meals on an old wood cook stove.  It's where children learned their place among adults.

It's where friends and extended family came for potato sack races in the back yard under two towering elms, long claimed by disease.  

It's where the grandchildren and great grandchildren anxiously awaited the summer so they could drag blankets and pillows to the porch in order to sleep outside.  The porch was the place where ghost stories were told.

My aunt Ce and her husband were the last of the original family to occupy the homestead.  Oh, the memories they gave us.  Playing a game of Flinch could be downright vicious with my aunt playing. It still keeps us laughing.  If I'm not mistaken, most of the older nieces have their own set of Flinch cards somewhere in their belongings.  

Memories, bigger than life, still flow from this house.